Peer-reviewed article
A Good Society (and how we make it).
Pickett KE ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This is a personal essay on building a good society, discussing socioeconomic inequalities and their connection to well-being. The author proposes universal basic income, wealth tax, and citizen participation as policy solutions. While it mentions children's education and well-being as components of a good society, it does not present empirical research, data, or evaluation of child-specific interventions or programs.
Key points
- A good society prioritizes prevention and addresses wider determinants of health to reduce inequalities
- Care systems should support children without creating financial stress
- Education should engage imagination and creativity while leaving no one behind
- Universal basic income and wealth tax are proposed as policy tools
- Citizen assemblies and participatory budgeting are suggested institutional mechanisms
Limitations
This is a normative essay presenting the author's vision rather than empirical research. It does not provide evidence about what actually works to improve children's well-being, contains no data, and does not evaluate any specific interventions or programs.
Abstract
What is a good society and how might we build one? This essay, an edited version of the Cochrane lecture delivered at the Society for Social Medicine and Population Health in Bradford 2025, sets out my personal vision of what we should be aspiring to and how we might achieve it. I open with evidence connecting socioeconomic inequalities to well-being and highlight that component parts of a utopian place exist, but not all in the same place. Building upon public health lessons around prevention and upstream intervention, I then introduce what I believe are the two most promising policies we can implement: a universal basic income and a wealth tax, underpinned by citizen's assemblies, participatory budgeting and institutional structures to support evidence-based social policymaking. I make the case that we have the evidence and tools needed to collectively create a good society and that it is possible to change course and bequeath a better world on future generations. A good society is one where everyone's physical and mental health is as good as it could be, because prevention is prioritised, and health inequalities are levelled out by addressing the wider determinants of health. It is one where those who need care-whether children, those with disabilities or the elderly-are looked after without incurring financial stress, in settings where their emotional and social well-being are as important as their physical needs. Our children and young people should flourish in an education system that engages their imaginations, inspires their creativity, equips them with skills for life and leaves no one behind.